Field of Invention
The present invention relates to bodies configured for installation on frames of straight truck or trailer chassis and, more particularly, to aluminum belt-discharge bodies configured for installation on frames of straight truck or trailer chassis used in the highway material hauling industry.
Brief Description of Related Art
Hot-mix asphalt should be delivered from an asphalt plant to a paving machine with minimal change in the characteristics of the asphalt mix during the delivery process. Generally speaking, there are three types of vehicles utilized in the United States for this purpose.
End-dump trucks deliver the asphalt mix from the truck bed into the hopper of a paving machine. Unloading is accomplished using the force of gravity. The front of the bed of the truck is raised, which allows the mix to slide down and out an opening in the back of the bed and into the hopper of the paving machine, which then paves the asphalt mix onto the roadway surface. Trucks of this type present certain problems, particularly when the truck bed is in a raised condition. Trucks with large beds can sometimes strike overhead power lines or bridges when the bed is raised.
A second type of vehicle used to deliver hot-mix asphalt is known as a bottom-dump or belly-dump truck. This type of vehicle delivers its load to the roadway surface ahead of the paving machine. An ancillary material pickup machine is mounted to the front of the paving machine, and picks up and delivers the hot mix asphalt from the roadway surface to the hopper of the paving machine. This type of delivery vehicle requires secondary equipment (e.g., the material pickup machine) and also undesirably requires the hot mix asphalt to be dropped to the roadway surface, then picked up again, before being laid down by the paving machine. This can result in a degradation of the hot mix asphalt, for example by adversely allowing the mix to cool before it is laid down by the paving machine.
The third type of vehicle used to deliver hot mix asphalt to paving machines is known as a live-bottom truck, a horizontal-discharge truck, or a belt-discharge truck (hereinafter referred to as “live-bottom truck”). This type of vehicle utilizes a truck bed having a bottom, four walls extending up from the bottom in which the back wall is a gate that selectively opens and closes, and an open top. The two side walls and the front wall are sloped away from each other as they extend up from the bottom (i.e. are angled inward going toward the bottom, referred to herein as being “sloped”) so that the payload is directed by gravity and the sloped walls to a conveyor/discharge belt mounted in the bottom of the truck bed. As the discharge belt is operated, the hot mix asphalt is discharged past the open gate and into the hopper of the paving machine without the need to raise the truck bed and without the need for secondary material pickup machines. Vehicles of this type can deliver hot-mix asphalt to paving machines in large quantities. But there is room for improvement in such vehicles.